Do you know someone who works for a nursing home, or in the kitchen of a school? If so, maybe they can save 1 gal. milk jugs for you. My nursing home uses 5-6 gal. of milk a day. Thats 35-42 jugs a week I'm bringing home.

Thank you clc70,

I was considering using zip lock bags because I live in CANADA, our milk doesn't comes in the galon container like yours do. In addition to that, I also don't drink any soda or soft drink.

I posted the same message in the wintersown forum, and I got a lot of good responds. I thank you for your time.

I asked family members, friends to save me any salad containers so I am hoping they will come in ....

happy gardening.

Poppy

Have you looked at Wintersown.org? I think Trudi has directions, complete with drawings on how to use zip-loc bags, or baggies as they call them in the U.S. Try this link:
http://wintersown.org/wseo1/Winter_Sowing_in_a_Baggie.html
Good luck!!
Northerner.

I sow almost all my seeds in zip lock bags.
Exceptions include those with tap roots, or easy, fast germinators that I don't want to handle twice.
I seal the bags entirely, and then, from spring through fall, check once a week to see if there has been any germination. In winter, everything is in cold frames, under the snow.
I write germination information, seed source, name and date on the bag and on a plastic label inside the bag.
I use Glad Zip 'n Seal Medium freezer bags for almost everything, switching to large when I want larger numbers. I use Glad bags because they are the cheapest at my grocery store. I also reuse them, as possible.
Once I find the seeds germinated, I pour the seed and its germinating medium (peat moss, vermiculite or pearlite) onto a tray filled with growing mix, wait a few days, and voila. It is essential to check seed fairly often.
This method saves a lot of room, time, fussing around with various containers, seed and germinating mixture.

When I did WS 4-5 years ago, I did use ziplocks as well and had great success. Used the no name brand ziplocks from No Frills...

I used a variety of containers last year but found they were too shallow, plus a lot of lids blew off or cracked meaning it was hard to keep the trays moist once the heat and sun turned on in the spring.

SO this year I am trying baggies. I found 8 large-size freezer bags for $1 at Dollarama. I've filled them about 1/3 full of soil as per the instructions at wintersown.org, then sprinkled with seed and covered lightly if necessary.

I have also used the write-on portion on the outside of the bag to write the name of whatever's sown inside - handy!

My only question would be, come spring, what would happen if any of the baby plants had their leaves touching the plastic, because I would think that would cause problems.

Also, a drawback I can see already is that bags of soil, especially topped with delicate fragile seedlings, are not as easy to move around as pots. But I guess they take up much less space!

Anyway, I'd love to hear from other Canadians who have experience with this!

Here is a link that might be useful: My modest winter sowing 2009